Seesaw Pictures

A documentary that scientifically analyses and tracks down the route of the Sewol Ferry that sank on the 16th of April in 2014 using its AIS to discover the cause of the unconfirmed sinking.

The drastic economic development in South Korea once surprised the rest of the world. However, behind of it was an oppression the marginalized female laborers had to endure. The film invites us to the lives of the working class women engaged in the textile industry of the 1960s, all the way through the stories of flight attendants, cashiers, and non-regular workers of today. As we encounter the vista of female factory workers in Cambodia that poignantly resembles the labor history of Korea, the form of labor changes its appearance but the essence of the bread-and-butter question remains still.

Let's look back at the 18th presidential vote. The 13,500 ballot boxes were taken to 251 ballot count locations and were sorted by 1,300 automatic ballot openers. The chairman announced the sorted data and soon it was announced to the public. But something strange happened. The 251 ballot count locations found 'a number' that have the same pattern. Scientists, mathematicians, statistician and hackers from all over the country start looking into the secret of 'this number'. The result is tremendously shocking...

Every weekend, the gay male choir G-Voice rehearses in Seoul. The choir, being a kind of antidote to homophobic Korean society, makes the everyday lives of gay men its theme in an intelligent and humorous way. For their tenth anniversary, the members are planning to give their first big concert with ambitious arrangements, creative choreographies and many new pieces. Besides preparing for their big day, G-Voice are also politically active, singing for equality and against discrimination.

At the hospice, the average remaining time for patients is 21 days. These patients prepare for their deaths. Park Soo-Myeong is 40 something year old man who is also a husband and father. Kim Jung-Ja is a mother of two sons. Park Jin-Woo was a math teacher. Shin Chang-Yeol lived a lonely life.

What happened in Korean society in the 1990s? The film starts with the Jijon-pa (Supreme Gangsters) case. The shocking story is narrated through the discussion by the two detectives who arrested the gangsters, of details of the roundup, data screens, and the death sentence. Nevertheless, Nonfiction Diary’s focus is not on the crime story. Starting from Jijon-pa onwards, the film reflects on the 1990s, when Korea digressed into contemporary history. The Seongsu Bridge and the Sampoong Department Store’s collapses are recalled, followed by the then-government’s punishment of the May 18 Uprising leaders, revealing the Korean legal system’s death penalty status, touching on political and power issues. The audience is reminded that today, 2013, is an extension of that same flow.

A group of women climbs a summer mountain situated in South Korea. They are refugees who have settled into South Korean society after fleeing from North Korea. For them, climbing the mountains has been an unavoidable journey for survival - a matter of life and death.

Devi's life was upended following her arrest during Nepal's civil war accused of rebellion. Tortured and raped while in custody, she faced depression and isolation. Despite hardship, Devi joined rebel forces and became a prominent member of Parliament.

Qinghua, a Nuosu ethnic teen, goes on a road trip with her two best friends, to look for a new skirt for her menarche ceremony.

Peter, his wife Nyathon, and his children endure his political imprisonment, a near assassination, asylum, and his many foiled attempts for a fair and free election in the world's youngest country. A child soldier from South Sudan turned Harvard graduate and democracy activist, Peter is forced to reconcile his commitment to his young country versus his young family, to nonviolent means versus whatever it takes, and a self-defined identity versus an inherited one as protector and leader of his people. We witness the family's personal and intergenerational costs but also their resilience as Peter makes choices which ultimately leads to his incarceration as a criminal in the US.

Baekheung-am Temple, a bhikkhunī (Buddhist nun) temple which opens only twice a year, is famous for its conservatism and principles. Access to this temple is prohibited and so is picture-taking. Although it was difficult to get the permission for shooting, it unlatched the latch by itself after I was officially exiled four times. Monk Sunwoo who lost her parents when she was three years old and grew up in the temple asks herself if this way is what she chose and what it means to her. Monk Sangwook chose to become a Buddhist priest before she became a professor. Her old sick mother constantly visits her to change her mind. Old master of seventy years old, who has trained for 40 years, self-examines her severely asking if she has lived properly.

Woman’s body bleeds regardless of her will. Through untold ages, this bleeding has been the symbol of secret, mystery, fervor and disavowal. The process of bleeding which has been taken care of with any absorbent materials, however, has undergone changes through critical moments of human history. NPR, the public channel in USA declared the year 2015 as ‘The Year of the Period,’ and ‘Free Bleeding Movement’ arose also in Korea. Numerous startup companies launched products for “New Bleeding.” Over a million viewers are visiting pages of sanitary-products-reviewing youtuber, and politicians start to talk about the blood. The walls of information collapse, and women choose their own way of “how to bleed.”

My parents were real estate developers and dealers in the 1980s. They achieved the ‘middle class dream’ thanks to the development boom. However, the Asian financial crisis swept everything away.

A dying merman asks a friend to give his remains to his daughter, hiding amongst the humans. Tasked with this dangerous journey, the merman secretly heads to the land of humans. He is chased by a new civil servant recruit fueled by curiosity and hatred.

A sequel to "Porosity Valley, Portable Holes" (2017), this piece expands upon the previous work through a fictionalized depiction of the migration of the migrant/mineral/data cluster known as Petra Genetrix. Juxtaposing refugee migration with digital migration, both of which characterize migration in the 21st century, the work creates a speculative space-time by interrogating the “ways of existence” and the “ways of representation” of the Yemeni refugees who recently arrived in South Korea. Reflected here is the state of affairs in which refugees are treated as a kind of malware or virus that threaten the immune system of the nation state.

13 years ago, I, Susanne, a German woman, and Jeong Rae a Korean man, fell in love at first sight and promised each other eternity. However, Jeong Rae who had to live as a foreigner in Germany, decided to return to his hometown in South Korea and open a chicken restaurant with his mother. I told him that I will start making a film or file for divorce. We both laughed, but we knew: this is serious. When we got married, we thought that love would overcome all the cultural differences between us, but the reality was not so easy. My parents, who consider Jeong Rae irresponsible for not having a proper job; my mother-in-law Sun Ja, who can't understand a single word I say; our daughter, Hannah, who just wants to have a "regular“ family; and me, feeling jealous of the chicken that Jeong Rae is so passionate about.

In hyper-urbanized Seoul, in an apartment complex where daily life is extremely monotonous, there is an eight-year-old girl, SAN, who navigates the complexities of childhood. Not only is she bullied at school because her father is Chinese, but she also struggles with academic stress due to her mother’s obsession with education. Although SAN grapples with the harsh reality, her resilience shines through her secret ritual: observing her neighbor/best friend, HA-JIN, through binoculars before bed. She is not the only one who finds solace through her neighbors. CHAO, SAN’s father, who suffers from a deteriorating relationship with his wife, who wants a divorce, also finds an unusual companionship with HAJIN’s mother, YUMI, who is open-minded and free-spirited. One day, SAN accidentally witnesses a shocking crime taking place at HAJIN’s home through her binoculars.

My mother left our home in Korea when I was 7 years old. I lived as if our father’s new wife was our real mother. My first name changed, we moved, I enrolled in a new school. My mother was a fallen woman never to be talked about. I could only stare at holes cut out of family photos, knowing it was her. Years later, now a filmmaker in France, I suddenly started having vertigo attacks that prevented me from working - my brain was deleting one of my eyes’ two images instead of merging them. As my world span, my thoughts returned to the blind spot in my existence: my mother. I learnt my father accused her of adultery, a crime in Korea until 2015. Sentenced to 8 months in jail, with no support from her family, she had to resign as a teacher and didn’t own a place to live. What was it like to be stamped an ill-reputed woman and shunned by 90’s Korean society?